


worshiping a god only i can see

by Salty_Cro



Series: worshiping a god only i can see [7]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Fic compilation??, Inspired by a Hozier Song, M/M, Songfic, The Adventure Zone: Amnesty (Podcast) - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-27
Updated: 2019-03-27
Packaged: 2019-12-25 08:45:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,468
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18257825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Salty_Cro/pseuds/Salty_Cro
Summary: When two cowards fall in love, who is supposed to move first?





	worshiping a god only i can see

**Author's Note:**

> alright so this is supposed to be chronological but in order to do that i had to do a bunch of arranging and a little bit of editing so it's not exactly the same. but this one is the actual canon of this fanfiction series. again, this one gets hozier levels of horny, so watch out.  
> duck's perspective is on the left, indrid's is on the right.

The first time you see him, you are starting to fear that it’s the end of the world. To be fair, it very well could have been. The funicular train could have crashed and destroyed the station, Thacker could have escaped and killed everyone, the tree could have taken over Kepler. But he was there, he warned you, he saved you. The end of the world (or at least your world) in the form of a devastating sinkhole threatened to overtake the town, but it was stopped in its tracks. Within hours, it was gone completely, and you wonder if he had something to do with it.

 

He looks at you, and the look is filled with such vulnerability, such adoration, that you can no longer meet his eyes. You know, and he knows, that he shouldn’t look at you like that. You’re a monster, and he’s everything you cannot be. He looks away, remembering that he knows better.

 

You are fascinated by the way he moves. He is always trying to slow himself down with jerky movements, but when he is alone with you he is fluid and dynamic and wonderful. He walks like a dancer, talks like a mad scientist, holds you like it’s the only thing he ever wants to do. He doesn’t breathe, except to talk, and that’s interesting too. Even in his stillness, it’s as if he’s posing for some unseen camera.

 

And really, you wish sometimes that cameras actually worked on him. He is beautiful, truly, and also strangely perfect. His human disguises have always been like that, he explained to you one day. He says he builds them from a template. And while the human body he has now is completely his, there are some things he can’t change about it. He’s tried, attempted to destroy the symmetry and too-sharpness, but it never works. The inherent Sylph-ness is undeniable. You remind him that you would think he’s perfect no matter what, no matter how unsettling he is.

 

He talks to you, and he talks with a such a careful familiarity. Like he wants to know every corner of your soul, but he knows you’re not ready to bare it to him. He sticks to jokes and generalizations. You both know that these gauze curtain barriers are for the best. He shouldn’t know you at all.

 

“If I was a tree,” you say jokingly one day (because if you act serious he gets scared), “I’d want you to be the one to cut me down, and use me for firewood or something, to keep you warm. Or maybe to burn your enemies.”

 

It’s a nonsense thought, and you know that, but he ponders it like you’re serious. He says, “You would be a birch tree.”

 

“Is that a good thing?” you ask.

 

He laughs and doesn’t answer. Instead he leans against you and goes back to drawing in his notebook. When you glance over at the sketch, it’s a birch tree with a moth blending into the bark. You aren’t sure why that’s so reassuring, but you let yourself hope. Hope for what, you don’t know. Hope that he won’t really set you on fire, maybe.

 

He tells you, as you start to spend time together alone, that he is not kind or nice to be around. You remind him that he saved you from getting hit by a truck. He immediately counters you, saying he knows that you stepped out into the road on purpose. You insist you didn’t. He says you’re a terrible liar. You say the same to him with a gentle prod. That’s the first time he lets you touch him, and it’s more thrilling than it should be.

 

The next time you can touch him, he allows your hands to find his, as you desperately try to convince him he’s a good person. You list all the simple actions you’ve seen him take, all the times he goes out of his way, and you tell him that prophet or not, he’s been trying to make the world a better place. He lets you get closer with each word, and each bullet point shatters the barriers he had put up. By the time you’re done, breathless for a few reasons, he’s holding you close, and you can’t even come up with a reason to pull away. You think that maybe this is the kindest thing he’s ever done, making you feel safe like this.

 

You won’t ask him where he came from. You won’t ask how long he spent looking at your futures, at your present, at your past. And he won’t ask how long you spent worrying about him, about the nights you looked out your window just a little too much, as if he might be waiting just past your sight. A lot of your relationship with him is “don’t ask, don’t tell” and yet you know more about him than you ever thought possible.

 

Instead, you press your lips to the side of his fuzzy head, and he brushes his proboscis against your cheek. You laugh a little bit, from the tickling sensation and from the absurdity of it all.

 

“Will we ever kiss like real people?” you ask.

 

He just laughs and tucks his head against your shoulder, keeping his mandibles away from your soft neck. He could destroy you in an instant, but the knowledge that he won’t lights you up inside like a thousand misplaced fireworks.

 

~~~~~~~

 

He offers you a hand up, from the dusty carpet outside his apartment door. He doesn’t know why you’re here (and to be honest, neither do you) but he lets you in anyway. Instead of asking questions, ones you know he will ask eventually, he tells you about his day. The beauty of his soul shines through his mundane words and you’re mesmerized. You think for a moment that maybe this could be your all-the-time, but you know, and he knows, this will not last.

 

“Make this easy for us both,” you say. He looks up at you and he knows what you mean. In fact he knows you almost as well as you do, but he reveres what you fear. “Stop letting me in, tell me no. Leave me in the cold, like I’ve always been. That’s what I know, that’s how I know I’m doing the right thing.”

 

And in a moment of tender charm, he answers you. “No.”

 

“Don’t be kind to me,” you plead, “Don’t let me in, you know you can’t keep me here.”

 

But he can. You know, and he knows, that you will come back. Every time, any time, you will come back.

 

“Come on, I’ll make you dinner,” he says, like that will quell the desperation rising in your throat.

 

It does. That’s the hardest thing to swallow— you don’t have to swallow your guilt when you’re around him. Other things… well. He’s making you dinner.

 

Later, afterwards, you are talking, and he is paying such close attention that you almost feel self-conscious. You make a joke to break the tension, and he smiles, and you see something in his expression that you’re so, so scared of. It’s pure, and it’s soft, and it means you could break him in an instant.

 

“I wondered,” you say. You’re a simple man, you don’t wonder much. But something about the man in your home is so evocative, strikes such a chord with you, that you can’t help but want to know more. He looks at you, and he’s scared. You take his hand in both of yours, like a promise to give twice as much as he is willing to take. You take a shaky breath and finish, “I wondered about where you went, what you did, the night after the tree.”

 

“What do you mean?” Indrid replies. He is looking past you, away from your joined hands. You can both picture the scene: him in his Sylph form, dirt and snow sticking to him, he was leaning on your shoulders and you told him to leave.

 

“Why did you come back?” you ask softly. You hope he has an answer, but he doesn’t always. That’s part of why you’re falling in love with him.

 

“I… I don’t know,” he says. And that’s fine. You don’t need to mention the churned earth around his Winnebago, like he kept taking off and landing again. Or the notebook, mostly covered in dirt, just barely unearthed above the shoreline of the river. Or that you recognized his handwriting in it immediately.

 

“Why did you save me?” you ask. It’s a bit complicated, this question, because he’s already told you, and you can put two and two together yourself just fine. He came back because he saw you die and he couldn’t live with that. But hearing him say it is so nice, and you’ve felt alone for a long time.

 

“Doesn’t that answer your first question too?” he deflects.

 

“You know what I’m asking,” you say.

 

“I couldn’t let you go,” he says. And while he still isn’t looking at you, his hand tightens around yours.

 

“It was kinda nice, you know,” you suggest, and he knows what you mean. The hand you aren’t holding takes off his glasses, and carefully (he’s always so careful around you) he envelops you with his whole self. It’s like that night, when he ripped you off the road and flew off into the trees, but this time you’re not losing your goddamn mind. Well, maybe a little bit.

 

You never ask him why he does things, he never asks the same to you. Right now it’s just his lips pressed up against your lips. Maybe you can kiss like real people do.

 

Later, after that even, you’re still there. In his apartment, in his bed, in his arms. And you know better, than to let yourself be known like this. And he knows better than to let a monster, however familiar, into his bed. And yet he’s holding you tightly, gently, lovingly. And you can’t even bring yourself to fight it, to warn him. He loves you, and it’s too late, because you love him.

 

You know who you are, what you are, what you’ve done, when you’re alone. You see things most clearly then, you tell yourself. You are a paragon of objectivity, of knowing every perspective without picking a side. You are a monster who made a selfish choice, who can’t decide between fitting into a world you don’t know and going back to a world you unknowingly destroyed. You are a convoluted mess of a not-quite-man who can’t keep his mouth shut.

 

When you see him, when you hear him, that all melts away. To him, you are simply “Indrid” or sometimes “Indy” or “‘drid” or some variation thereof. He thinks you’re funny, and clever, and beautiful. To him, you aren’t the man who says what he doesn’t need to hear. You’re the man who keeps coming back to him.

 

Sometimes, when he gets upset (not at you, never at you) he becomes frozen. Physically, emotionally, mentally. Cold fury seeps out from his hands, his eyes, his bared teeth, and you can hear the beating of wings that are just beyond your perception. He is indestructible, unstoppable, and it’s all you can do to watch as he tears apart his own mind. You realize you’ve never actually seen him fight. It might be better than this, watching him fight himself and being unable to do anything about it.

 

He is so easy to come back to. Being around him feels like home, with his apartment filled with warmth and nature and a cat who tolerates you. He speaks to you like you’ve known each other for years, and you wish you had. His body is a forest you can never get lost in. His bed is already accommodating to your strange figure, tucked against his chest, pretending to sleep. His soul is tangling with yours in an inexplicable display of brilliance. You need him, a little bit, and you can’t—

 

“Don’t let me in,” you try again, nearly screaming in the lowest whisper you can manage. “Stop holding onto me.”

 

He lets go, scared, and you hate the cold that seeps in immediately. He is silent as you slip out of his bed, not your bed, and out of his apartment. “Don’t be kind to me,” you whisper. He can’t hear you. Maybe he’ll never hear you again.

 

But he listened to you, and you listened to him in turn. He let you into his daily routines, fuck, he cooked for you like he was just waiting for you to come. He knows it.

 

You will come back.

 

You can’t help it. You can’t unlearn it. You try, spending days on your own, alone in the cold, trying to ice out your heart and pin it to the wall like so many false prophecies before it. It doesn’t work, just like you knew it wouldn’t work. Every time you close your eyes, all you can see is his front door.

 

Finally, days have passed, you don’t know how long, and you’re there. A vision coming true, the first of hundreds, hundreds of truths and horrors you need to tell him. The door opens, he’s there, you’re there.

 

“It’s cold,” he says, “come on in.”

 

You hesitate. He’s not mad. He is merciful, he is kind, he is forgiving. You don’t deserve mercy. He can’t afford this kindness. You know (or at least, you fear) that you will destroy him, and he hasn’t even finished constructing himself. Maybe, just maybe, you can convince him he is the statue of an idol and not a grave. That’s what it is, isn’t it? That he thinks he’s just as bad as you, and that together you can be a little less miserable. He’s wrong, but he will listen to you, and you are scared of that power.

 

You go inside, regardless. The door swings shut behind you. For a moment, you see a future like a moment you have lived before. Sitting outside on the floor, softly craving a man you won’t let yourself see anymore.

 

That’s not what you picked. You picked him, you want him, you want this.

 

Tonight, the howling is inside.

 

~~~~~~~

 

You walk with him through the woods often. Sometimes the ground seems to quake beneath his feet, sending aftershocks through the worn soles of your boots and into the surrounding dirt. You would never tell him so, but you relish in the power he emanates. He’s probably dangerous, but he makes you feel so safe. He warps the space around him slightly, in a way only the closest of looks could determine. The Earth knows he’s not supposed to be there, but it just isn’t powerful enough to stop him. He knows, too, what he’s doing to the world, and he’s showed you the things he can do. It’s amazing. He’s amazing.

 

Sometimes he gets a look in his eyes, like he is looking for something that isn’t there. It’s a feeling you know well, but you’ve never found a remedy. You just guide him to the couch, where he sits down complacently. He’ll do anything you tell him to, and it’s a strange power to hold over someone. To be fair, you’ll believe anything he tells you. It’s a different kind of power, but again, he won’t use it against you.

 

Sometimes you slip. You lose your grip on the present, on him, and you are lost in your own mind. Sometimes it’s a garden, sometimes it’s a minefield. Most times, it’s a road. The road cuts through a forest but is well-traveled, with dense flowering brush along the sides. There are openings in the foliage at random intervals, representing the choices that could be made and where they might lead. You are always walking forward. Sometimes you turn off the road, sometimes you keep moving in the same direction, but you are always moving forward. Always pushing further into the future. Always getting lost.

 

When you are so lost that you just wish you were home, you do the unthinkable. You turn around. And there you are, on that road again, but going back. Going back to him. Within moments, you are in the present, and you are in his arms. He doesn’t tell you how long it’s been, and he doesn’t ask what you saw. He’s just glad you’re here with him.

 

You go to the kitchen to make him food; it’s the only comfort you know won’t hurt him. He doesn’t feel safe in your arms, as hard as you try. No sword or strength or security can protect him from himself, and it’s not your battle to fight anyway. You remember a time you avoided battles.

 

When you look up to keep an eye on him, he’s sitting on the window bench, looking out at the town. His shoulders are slumped with sadness and the terrible, crushing weight that he is always carrying. You have offered to help him bear it. He says you are already carrying enough.

 

So instead of asking, you walk over to him with the hot cocoa and sit across from him. He holds the warmth in his hands but says nothing. Asks nothing. It’s silent, looking through the cold window and seeing the town you know so well in a light that isn’t so new at this point. After all, the strangest change is sitting here next to you.

 

You’re barely touching him, just a brush of legs too long for such a small windowsill, and then the hot cocoa disappears and he is in your arms. He physically cannot cry, he’s told you this before, but this is the closest thing you’ve seen to it. You hold him close, try to hold him in the way he holds you that makes you feel like the only thing in the world. He is the only thing in your world right now, and he needs to know it. He melts under your hands, still shaking with sorrow, until he calms down and a soft sigh escapes him.

 

He’s been around enough nights that you know when he’s fallen asleep. He weighs nothing as you carry him to your bed. If he were awake, he would make some joke about a monster in your bed. He makes the same joke every time, like a last chance for you to let go. If life weren’t so hard, you would never let go.

 

Even in the soft moonlight, with his back against your chest, you can’t fall asleep. You run your hands through his tangled silver hair. He doesn’t wake up. You hide your face in his neck, and he doesn’t wake up. You are scared to talk, scared to ask, what has scared him so thoroughly that he cried in the arms of a man he claimed he barely knew.

 

He does wake up eventually, when the moon is too high to peer through the curtains. He sighs deeply, and shuffles around until he’s facing you. With tentative hands and a more tentative mouth, he kisses you. You are ready, you’ve been ready, since the night he sat outside your door waiting for you to come home.

 

Eventually, once you’ve understood it yourself, you do tell him what you saw. You saw darkness, and you saw light, and you were unsure which side you were on. You saw flames, you saw suffering, you saw rebirth and you saw celebration. You saw everything, and you understood enough of it, enough to know that what you need to see is right in front of you.

 

You tell him other things too. You tell him how you were an accessory to the royalty, you tell him how you aided in the destruction of your home, you tell him how you escaped, and how you never plan to return. You tell him of the fights you were in, of the drugs you tried, of the people you thought could protect you. You tell him all these horrible things about yourself, and he doesn’t care. Well, he cares, but he cares more about you now.

 

“If— if I get so lost, so lost I don’t remember how to come back, would you wait for me?” you ask.

 

“Of course,” he says.

 

“For how long?” you ask.

 

“For— shit, I mean, as long as it takes, right? For you to get back?” he answers. He sounds worried now.

 

“I’m not planning on it,” you say, taking his hand.

 

“Well, I don’t think you were planning on disappearing before,” he says. A guilt you have only understood since you’ve known him stabs through you.

 

Before, you didn’t have a reason to be in the present. Before, you were running from everything. Abominations, the past, the future. The futures you saw, at least. But then you saw him walk out onto that dark highway, and you knew he was doing it to get you to come back and that was reason enough. Now you understand that he is more than enough for you. Too much, some might argue, but you’re just grateful he’s there for you at all.

 

“I think you know by now that even if I’m gone, I’ll always come back,” you promise.

 

~~~~~~~

 

He is open with you like he is with no one else. He has shown you who he really is, in all senses of the word. His past, his present, his future. He has cried, or the closest approximation of it, in your arms. He has told you how terrified, how petrified he is. He has gone still in your arms, and you gently coax him back to reality and the present. He says your name like an oath, like a prayer, like a song.

 

There are times, though, when he doesn’t care who you are. He is listless, despondent, so deep in a possibility that he forgets what has already come to be. He looks so far forward that he can’t even see you. He can barely move, barely function, and it scares you. He shakes with fear, with sorrow, with regret, with all the things that you will never be able to fix for him. God, you wish you could fix everything for him. For now, though, you just keep him alive and hope that he will remember who you are when he comes back to you.

 

When he does come back to you, you murmur soft assurances to him, sometimes to the point of incomprehensibility. Your mouth stumbles on the words because you just need him to know, need him to feel how much you love him. How much he means to you. He is just as scared as you are, and together you grieve for a horror that hasn’t happened yet.

 

“I don’t think it’s my heart you’re worried about,” he says one day. You look at him, surprised. Neither of you haven’t talked about the feelings you aren’t supposed to talk about for almost a week. He is resting against your chest, with your legs on either side of him, against a pine tree by the river.

 

“What makes you say that?” You reply, your fingers stopping their familiar path through his greying hair.

 

“You’re scared for yourself. And that’s okay, Indrid, you’re allowed to be scared, but it’s not like I’m gonna try and hurt you either,” he explains.

 

You have tried so hard to make yourself into the grim old soothsayer you wish you wanted to be. And yet this man, this relatively young man lying between your legs, is the wisest person you’ve ever met. He’s right, just like always.

 

“You’re scared too,” you say. It’s a desperate grab for any semblance of dignity that you are sure will backfire.

 

“A little,” he admits, “But not of you. Mostly for you, and a little bit for myself.”

 

“What are you scared of?” you ask.

 

“Getting hurt. Dying. Truly being myself for once and it turns out no one likes me,” he says honestly. You knew he would be honest, but you weren’t prepared for the last part.

 

“Why bother with someone if they don’t really like you?” you ask.

 

“Because I already love them too much to let go,” he says simply. You realize he was talking about you too.

 

“Duck—” you aren’t sure how to continue that sentence. How can you communicate the feeling you get when you learn something new about him? How could you begin to describe how good it feels to make him laugh? How could language even capture the love your decrepit heart holds for him?

 

Instead of words, you try holding him close. He understands what you’re doing and leans in as close as he can. You’re a terrifying creature to most people, and yet he’s curled up against your chest like he would never want to be anywhere else. In his words, “Four arms just means better hugs.” Maybe he should have that same optimism for himself.

 

“Duck, we’re living in the end times here. There’s so many things to worry about, you have to let go of the self-consciousness,” you say finally. It’s not helpful, and you know that.

 

Apparently, he doesn’t. “You say the most fucked up shit and it always works,” he mumbles into your shoulder.

 

“I— a better way to put that would have been that the literal end of my world would not be enough to take me away from you, but it’s too late now. I suppose that’s what I mean, in a sense. You can’t go back, you can’t skip forward. We’re trapped in each moment between infinite nothingness,” you say. It’s more garbage, but like you said, it’s too late now.

 

“Thanks, Indy, really makes me feel great about my existence,” he laughs.

 

“If it’s any consolation, the Denny’s opened today, so we can go get dinner,” you say. He laughs harder.

 

~~~~~~~

 

One of the most unsettling things about him are his eyes. You’ve seen them, the shining red compound orbs, protruding from an otherwise human-passing face. You’ve seen their full versions, sunken into a fuzzy black head far better suited to them. But it’s not the alien appearance that’s so disconcerting. It’s something about the way he looks at you, like he’s searching inside you. Like he’s figuring out every single thing you’re thinking in a single moment. When he does it (and he does it often) you feel so vulnerable. It’s fine, you’ve been vulnerable with him before, but sometimes a pang of pure survival instinct tells you to look away. He would never hurt you, but you’ve always been taught to be scared of monsters.

 

Other than that, though, he’s very good at fitting into human life. In fact, he’ll often poke fun at you for doing something out of the ordinary. He says that you have a talking sword, where he just has cool glasses. He’s quick to criticize in general, honestly, but you know it’s never from a place of malice. Especially since he can see the future. You always take his advice, even if you won’t admit it. You have an image to uphold too.

 

Except that really, you don’t. That’s what makes this work. You are honest, and vulnerable, and scared. He has held onto you through panic attacks, monster attacks, asthma attacks. You’ve broken down at his feet, crying his name like he could help you with the weight of your fate that is so heavy and blinding. You say his name all the time, like you can’t believe you are allowed to know it, to know him.

 

One day, he is panicking again, and he asks you if you know what he is supposed to do as the Chosen One. He’s asked you before, and he will ask again, even though he hasn’t been the Chosen One for weeks. You tell him the same thing you tell him every time. There’s no ultimate plan, no ulterior motives in the fabric of an atom, no singular destiny for the universe. It’s just particles that make up entities that make up decisions based on everything that has happened before. He has no divine duty, no matter what a holographic woman tells him. Sure, it’s scary, but it’s freeing. There’s no narrative arc to anyone’s life. He doesn’t need to map himself onto this Hero’s Journey worksheet he kept from ninth grade. From the moment someone is born to the moment they die, they can do anything they want. The only requirement for a life is that it starts and it ends.

 

It’s interesting that he never gets mad at you. You’ve provoked him, once or twice, just to see what would happen. You aren’t proud of it, but you can’t help it. He’s so intense, so smart, so everything, that you want to know if he really notices your presence. The problem is he always knows that you’re trying to make him mad. Instead of getting mad, he just tells you that he would rather be here than anywhere else. You almost don’t believe him at first. Then he has actions to back up his words. You don’t doubt him after that.

 

The moment he is truly himself, you notice immediately. It’s like a weight has been lifted from his chest. He laughs louder, talks more, kisses harder. It’s usually only around you, though, and while you want him to be free, it feels good to know that he’s trusting you with a secret. He’s told you so many things he’s never told anyone else. You’ll keep them, keep him, safe in your mind.

 

“If secrets were seeds,” you tell him, “you’d have to have to hire a gardener for my grave.”

 

“Bold of you to assume you’ll die first,” he says. And morbid as it is, it’s probably true. Lifespans aside, he’s run into more danger than you can even begin to predict.

 

“Then I’ll be sure to hire one for yours,” you promise, “You’d make some beautiful flowers.”

 

“And I got way too many secrets,” he says.

 

Between the two of you, there’s enough secrets for twenty lifetimes. Those aren’t important, though. What is important is that you are with him. Besides, your mouth has better things to do than lament the things you cannot say.

 

That’s really it, isn’t it? Why waste time with regret when he is there, looking at you like that. Sure, you’ve made mistakes, and so has he, and you will both fuck up in the future, but right now everything is perfect. And the universe may not have a plan for you, but you have a plan for him. He gives in to your touch, ironically, like it was meant to be.

 

Later, you’re in his bed, and he’s on top of you, and he suddenly stops.

 

“What’s wrong?” you ask.

 

“I get it now,” he says, “Y’know, what you were saying the other day. About not worrying about things.”

 

“Do you think about the universe while we’re having sex?” you ask.

 

“Don’t you?” he raises an eyebrow.

 

You meet him in a kiss because he already knows the answer.

 

That night, you see more, you are gone longer, you miss him more. It’s nothing compared to the days, weeks, months that you were alone. It does hurt more, though. Still, you bear this burden because it means less weight for him to carry. You see again the darkness and the light and the sadness and the flames and the triumph and the celebration and the uncertainty. Always so much uncertainty. You look for the definition, the detail that makes the difference. You take notes, more like still pictures in your mind, and you turn around and go back to him.

 

You can’t tell him this time. It would make things too complicated. Not too long ago, you would have used this as an excuse to not know him at all. Now, though, you wouldn’t give him up for the world. It’s terrifying, to feel your objectivity melt away at the thought of a man who is so mundanely significant. To his town and your home, sure, but more importantly to you. He is so important to you. Telling him about the end of the world would only make things worse. You need him there so he can make things better.

  


~~~~~~~

 

The first time he uses his energy-based magic, it scares the shit out of you. He’s created an extradimensional red fire, and it burns through your forest. Except that it doesn’t. You can see the flames, and you can see the trees, but it’s as if they’re on two different layers of reality. The fire burns on, cleansing something, while the trees sway gently in the breeze. He stands next to you, expressionless. You look between the blaze and his face and realize you might be just a little bit in love with him.

 

The best part is, he seems to be a little bit in love with you too. It takes a while for you to connect the dots, but the dots are there. He uses any excuse to touch you now, to hold onto you. He keeps coming back, even when things are on uncertain terms. He tells you things he’s never told anyone before, and he tells you that too. It’s weird, in a really good way, to know that this powerful person who could do basically anything he wants has chosen to be around you.

 

And then one day, you do have to leave, and you tell him, and you also tell him that you won’t be able to explain until later. He understands, he always does, and kisses you one more time before you leave. The memory of his lips on yours gets you through what you do next. He gets you through everything you wish you wouldn’t do, even if he doesn’t know it.

 

And once it’s over you return, bloodied and shaking, to his doorway.

 

“You’re home,” he says. You just nod.

 

He lets you in, and he’s not scared. He helps you clean up and kisses your worries away. Wandering hands and lips distract you from the monster that you are. It’s almost funny, you think, how you can do all the things you’ve done, but when you come home you are his. Afterwards, he tells you about his day at work, and the other days that you missed because you had worse things to do.

 

The first time you see him fight, it’s like an action movie. He’s fast, and he’s smart, and he’s so damn good at all of this that you wonder how many times he’s done it before. Magic mixes with melee and before you know it, before you can get a single hit in, every single attacker is gone. He collapses into your arms, still thrumming with energy. He might be the most powerful person you know, but you’re his favorite person.

 

Most of the time, you don’t have words to express how you feel about him. Where would you even start? The gentle excitement that builds when he touches you? The way you melt into the tingling sensation his fingers and lips and tongue leave? That his voice is the only thing worth listening to? That you love him so much and it’s the best fear you’ve ever felt? None of it works, so you work around it like you would a lie and hope he understands what you mean.

 

Every time you try, the words die on your tongue. Language fails you, no turn of phrase or metaphor or figure of speech or whatever the fuck your high school English teacher taught you is enough. Nothing is enough for him, you think, even though he is satisfied by anything you are willing to give him. If he were a god, you think, this would be a strange setup for him. All offerings and no praise. There is still worship, but rarely in the form of words.

 

He promises, again and again, that he will be there. Just like you promise to come back. He is your stability, your anchor in a world that is balanced on the edge of oblivion. Before you met him, in your objectivity, you might have called him a beacon. Now you know that beacons are stupid, and you can accept the shallow moth jokes he offers you. He is your light, and you are inevitably drawn to him. He laughs when you tell him that, but he knows you’re serious. He’s beautiful, and you tell him that too, and his laugh is softer now. He’s not very good at accepting compliments, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t deserve them.

 

Really, now that you think about it, there are a lot of interesting comparisons you could make. He is a tree, and you are the moth whose wings blend with the bark. He is the warmth that keeps you from freezing over or falling into hibernation (well, that one is pretty literal). He is the flower whose nectar you— you know what, maybe it’s better if you stop there. He is already laughing, a sweet sound that echoes through his apartment. Your apartment. Your home. That’s what it is. That’s how it’s supposed to be.

 

Sometimes you wonder if anyone else has held him like you do. Not out of jealousy (after all, you are the one who gets to do it now) but out of simple curiosity. You know he would have mentioned if there was a person he would rather be with. He has said so many times, there is nowhere else in any world that he would prefer to be. Still, you exaggerate your romantic side a little bit sometimes, just to remind him that it’s there.

 

Together, you make an interesting pair. You think he is a miracle, and he thinks you are a savior. Both of you think the other has the answer. You both know that no one has the answer, that there is no answer. Or maybe, your answer is him. Maybe his answer is you. You say his name again, and he understands what you’re saying.

 

The best part about this, whatever it is, is that it’s just as intimate for you to sit on the roof and watch the sunset as it is to ignore everything in the comfort of his bed. You’re both leaning on each other. He’s a little breathless from climbing the ladder. You are grateful that he’s breathing at all. So many little details had to match up for you to be in this moment with him, and you would never want to be anywhere else.

 


End file.
